Re: Puzzled about KDE or GNOME or what?

Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap004@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
writes:

Evergreen <sidneylambe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jeremy Nicoll - news posts
<jn.nntp.scrap004@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Interesting; I've an IBM mainframe systems programming
background so command-lines etc do not particularly worry me.

Are you talking UNIX operating systems?

No; VM/CMS about 30 years ago, and MVS->S/390 more recently.

I did use VMS (?) on a VAX around 30 years ago...


In fact I tend to loathe GUIs that hide what's really going on,
interpreting error messages for me, hiding all the stuff in
config files etc.

OTOH I have a feeling that getting started in Linux might be
easier with some sort of GUI, and I can explore config files
etc when I feel like it.

You are confusing me with your use of "GUI". I run a GUI, but
I do _not_ run a GDE (Graphical Desktop Environment) like kde
or gnome. They are very different things indeed.

A GUI is just a simple window manager that's available for X apps
to run in. You can run it from a plain term or from an x-term
within the window manager. A GDE is a massive suite of graphical
applications, libs, and utilities attempting to be a complete
user-interface.

Hmm, I understand the difference between 'window manager' and 'desktop
environment', I think.

But to most users I'd have thought a GUI was simply any graphical
representation of a task, whether it was very basic or not.

Maybe the way you use the term is linux-specific?

No, whoever you are replying to mis-defined GUI.
A GUI is any "drawn" application, even on Linux.

GDEs go beyond Window Managers in that they provide a bunch of
applications.

Most of those applications will run in any Window Manager
unless they take specific advantage of non-standardized things
(like the systray).

.

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